Everyone
knows that telling your story can be cathartic. The process allows the teller
to verbalize personal experiences that may have profoundly and possibly
permanently impacted his or her understanding of self and others. In the
sharing, the story takes flight and can reshape itself into a sign post of hope
for others. It can also evolve into a moment of healing and/or become the basis
of a breathtaking insight that will change the world forever.
Such is
the case for author Tom Daly who has written Don’t Make Me Cry: The Maiming of a Mind.
This suburban
horror story is a memoir that the author describes as part psychological
thriller and part murder mystery. This true story reveals torturous mind
control that took decades for the author to begin to come to terms with. According
to Daly, the story took place in the real world and in an average, middle-class
suburb of San Francisco.
Q/A with the Author
Q: How long have you been writing?
A: Remember letters? You know, the handwritten kind? I’ve been writing letters and papers all my life, like everyone else – believing I was writing “prose”. So I have been “writing” most of my life and I fancied myself a bit of a writer, someone that could turn a phrase and string together a plot.
Q: Is this your first novel?
A:This is my first completed writing project of any significance. I have to confess that actually getting the thing done took more than I imagined.
Q: Why this topic and/or genre?
A:This was the book I had to write first. I tried writing other things but lost interest in them. Then when this presented itself I couldn’t stop. At first I wasn’t even sure what it would be. Maybe a movie. Or maybe I would change the characters and places and make it a work of “fiction”. But as it progressed, it seemed to me that the real names and places should remain and even the format – a dead-tree book in the conventional sense seemed right.
Q: What do you want readers to gain from reading this book?
A:The most important thing, and I don’t even mention it in the book, is the idea that people have an amazing capacity to overcome almost anything. So, although the people I talk about in my book continue to quietly live out their lives in the suburbs and there seems no quick or easy path to justice, even this kind of atrocity can be overcome. I want my reader to understand that I am still alive and well, in spite of the events I describe, and I hope it leaves them feeling uplifted, though a little creeped out at the same time.
Q: Do you have other writing projects?
A:I am hoping to write another book about this subject using other people’s experience. We are profoundly individual in the way we experience life and I hope to capture this bizarre experience from someone else’s point of view.
A: Remember letters? You know, the handwritten kind? I’ve been writing letters and papers all my life, like everyone else – believing I was writing “prose”. So I have been “writing” most of my life and I fancied myself a bit of a writer, someone that could turn a phrase and string together a plot.
Q: Is this your first novel?
A:This is my first completed writing project of any significance. I have to confess that actually getting the thing done took more than I imagined.
Q: Why this topic and/or genre?
A:This was the book I had to write first. I tried writing other things but lost interest in them. Then when this presented itself I couldn’t stop. At first I wasn’t even sure what it would be. Maybe a movie. Or maybe I would change the characters and places and make it a work of “fiction”. But as it progressed, it seemed to me that the real names and places should remain and even the format – a dead-tree book in the conventional sense seemed right.
Q: What do you want readers to gain from reading this book?
A:The most important thing, and I don’t even mention it in the book, is the idea that people have an amazing capacity to overcome almost anything. So, although the people I talk about in my book continue to quietly live out their lives in the suburbs and there seems no quick or easy path to justice, even this kind of atrocity can be overcome. I want my reader to understand that I am still alive and well, in spite of the events I describe, and I hope it leaves them feeling uplifted, though a little creeped out at the same time.
Q: Do you have other writing projects?
A:I am hoping to write another book about this subject using other people’s experience. We are profoundly individual in the way we experience life and I hope to capture this bizarre experience from someone else’s point of view.
The 170-page book sells for $19.95.
For details click here
Or visit the author’s website.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to share my book and the Q and A with your readers.
ReplyDeleteI believe that folk tales are an important element that binds a people together. It may be that they define a culture itself. The magic is that you don’t have to believe the stories, or understand them, or know them very well. All that is required for a story to work its magic is that you hear it.
My story aspires to find a place in the culture of Northern California. I opened the book with the following:
I will tell you this and you will think less of me. I wish it wasn’t like that, but it is; though it won’t stop me. Whether you believe me or not, doesn’t matter. All that matters to me, to you, and to them – is that you hear it.